


Bit by Bit

by Takada_Saiko



Series: Fallen [12]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Series, early romance, requests (sort of?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-13
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-12-27 18:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12086631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: Sometimes choosing to trust can shift a relationship in unforeseen ways.





	Bit by Bit

**Author's Note:**

> Michael Eklund had a sort of impromptu Q&A on Twitter a couple of days ago, and I asked if he could see any fanfic about Bobo, what would he want to see. He said "Bobo and Willa: the treehouse years". While I've already written a couple that included Willa in the treehouse, this is the story that came up out of that tweet. No clue if he'll ever see it, but if he does, hopefully he'll like it.

**Bit By Bit**

 

 

It had been a learning curve for a thirteen year old girl to go from all that the 21st century had to offer to a treehouse in the middle of nowhere. It didn't have running water and it didn't have electricity. She hadn't known it was possible to live like that, but he'd taught her how.

In theory Willa had known that all Revenants were from a time long before what she was used to, but it was something else entirely seeing their leader explain how to work a kerosene lamp or set up a way for her to cook and stay warm with an old school stove that might as well have been from his time. He made sure she had everything she needed: clothing, food, books and drawing paper to keep her occupied. Even company when he had the time and she let him.

Bobo Del Rey was not what she had expected. She had seen him speaking with her daddy a few times and he had always been imposing. Dangerous. A demon. Here, though, he was reserved. A little snarky when she pushed him too far - usually when she threw things at him in a fit of frustration in the earlier days - and strangely respectful. The Revenants that had pulled her from her home had been anything but that, and they had made it _very_ clear what they wanted to do to her. Bobo had been crass enough around them that the change as soon as he stowed her away had only added to the confusion of a teenage girl taken from everything she knew.

Slowly, though, bit by bit, she had come to accept that he wasn't a threat to her. Neither of them had made it easy. He didn't like to share and she didn't trust. It took longer than it should have to ask why he had tucked her away when she had heard him promise the others he'd kill her, and even longer to trust in the answer. Explanations came slowly, though, and those had turned into conversations. He had brought her paper and pencils when he had found out she liked to draw and she had taught herself to fold pieces into little origami animals. There was always a new book before one was finished and she found that he was surprisingly well read.

Everything was a contradiction, both of what she thought she knew about every Revenant in the Ghost River Triangle and what she was once certain was true about Bobo Del Rey, and eventually, with each new glimpse to who he was, she had come to care about him.

She couldn't pinpoint exactly when that had happened. Maybe somewhere during one of their long conversations about a book she was reading or the time that she'd gotten so sick in the cold winter months that she had woken to find herself buried under his coat and Bobo dozing in the chair next to her bed, keeping watch over her. Or maybe it was when he'd finally chosen to trust her with his most dangerous secret.

The evening had started with a strange whim to begin with. Willa wasn't a cook and she knew that, so what had possessed her to try her hand at putting together a few basics she had around the treehouse to make something akin to dinner was still beyond her. She hadn't been aware that she could burn rice until that day.

Willa had gotten things mostly under control by the time the knock came at the door and Bobo entered - thankfully - with what looked like a bag from Shorty's in his hands. "Please tell me you brought alcohol with that," she grumbled, still waving a bit of the smoke out the crack in her window. It was freezing outside, but better cold than suffocating.

Bobo quirked an off-coloured eyebrow at her and set dinner down on the small table and she spotted a liquor bottle in the bag. Willa moved over to the small stash of glasses she kept there and tossed him one, watching him catch it easily and they moved into a ritual that had taken hold at some point in the last ten years that this had been her home. They spoke about the town and how nothing ever really changed. The Revenants and the humans. It had been a long time now since she'd asked about her family. She'd never cared a lot for Waverly and Wynonna…. Wynonna had killed their father. Out of sight, out of mind. She had enough to deal with without focusing on that. And now she needed to put it back out of mind.

"You've never told me how you died," Willa interrupted the lulling silence, pouring herself another drink.

Bobo tilted his head. "I have not," he acknowledged noncommittally, the tone one Willa had come to know meant he had no intention to either, but she wasn't in a mood to let it rest.

"Why? Don't you trust me?"

He shifted at that, his expression guarded. "It's not a happy story."

"Neither is this, but it's the one we live. Daddy always said that Revenants were outlaws Wyatt Earp put down with Peacemaker, so what did you do to piss off my great great granddaddy? Tell me how a man like you became a demon."

She watched him carefully, taking in the small signs of stress in the way his lips twitched downward and how he wasn't quite looking her in the eye. Maybe the story was worse than she expected. "You know, after this long, whatever it is isn't going to scare me," she offered.

"Nothing to be scared of," he answered, his voice rough and deep. "I was a fool."

It was Willa's turn to frown and she reached for the bottle of whisky, topping off the glass in his hand and settling in to wait. She knew his tells and he knew hers, so he knew she wasn't letting this go. Her time in the treehouse had taught her patience if nothing else.

After a long moment he knocked back everything in the glass, poured again, and began to speak. His voice was even as he told her the story of a man by a name Willa actually recognized, but not as an outlaw. Robert Svane's name appeared in a set of letters penned by Wyatt Earp himself. The idea that the leader of the Revenants had been a close confidant and friend of Wyatt Earp's would have floored most people - she expected that it would have left her own daddy at a loss for words if he'd been alive to hear it - but for her it filled in the gaps. Watt had been his friend and he'd shot him, wrapped him up in this curse same as the Heirs. Bobo - _Robert_ \- was innocent and everything he was now was what this horrible curse had made him. He was a victim of it the same as her. Of all the reasons he'd given for saving her over the years - some she thought more honest than others - that was the one that felt the most true to her. They were kindred souls, both devastated and beaten down by something so far out of their control, so unfair, that it had nearly destroyed them.

But it hadn't. He had saved her. Despite everything, he had saved her.

He'd stopped talking now, and Willa felt the buzz of the liquor running through her system. She wasn't sure how long his story had taken, but the sun was long gone, leaving them only with the lights the stars and moon gave them.

Silence stretched between them and she reached out, her fingers touching the back of his hand and drawing his attention. "You're a good man, aren't you?"

He snorted at that. "Once, maybe, but not for a long time now."

"That's not your fault though."

"Don't make it any less true."

"This curse… twists things up," she said as she stood, reaching a hand out to touch the side of his face in a way she never had. It drew his eyes on her and she held his gaze. "Wyatt Earp screwed us both."

Willa wasn't sure if it was the trust he had given her or if it was the alcohol and the late night, but she leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips, her hand still lingering on his cheek.

He kissed her back, if only for half a moment before he stiffened and pulled away. "Willa," he managed, voice raspy and strained. "You're…"

Those clear blue eyes of his were focused on her and she saw a strange mix of emotions there, all of them conflicted. She pressed her forehead against his. "I'm not a child anymore, Robert. I haven't been for a long time, or hadn't you noticed?" He had. She could see it in his eyes that he had. "I want this. Don't you?"

There was a beat of pause in which she thought she may have misjudged something and Willa had no idea what would come next if she had. She started to step back, spin some lie to cover it, but he caught her hand before she could. He was on his feet his gaze holding her there as he brought a hand up to either side of her face and leaned in. Willa felt her eyes slip closed as he kissed her. Her hands shifted to rest on his sides, fingers gripping his t-shirt there to hold onto him. She had no idea where this would go or how a Revenant and an Earp could possibly make something work between them. All she knew was that they'd both suffered and they were both alone. They had been for too long, but here, in this moment with him, she didn't feel quite so hopeless. She felt alive.

* * *


End file.
